Early termination fees to be eased

If you happen to be a T-Mobile customer who is looking to jump ship early and you are near the end of your contract, then T-Mobile is going to reduce their early termination fee (ETF) to $100 for customers who have three to six months left on their contract. If you happen to have less than three months left on your contract, T-Mobile will only charge $50 or the standard monthly rate that you have been paying.

Cell phone providers in the U.S. have been coming under increasing fire from customers over early termination fees that cell phone providers have been charging. The push has been on from consumers for the FCC to come up with uniform nationwide ETF regulations that cell phone providers must abide by.

Customers continue to complain in the U.S. that cell phone companies and their agents who sell cell phone plans and equipment push customers into long-term contracts with high-priced early termination fees. Part of the reason that cell phone providers like these long contracts is that it gives them the ability to recover subsidies that they use to bring down the price of high-priced phones.

Many customers want the FCC regulate how much cell phone providers can subsidize cell phone equipment, what the maximum contract length can be, and the maximum amount of an early termination fee the cell phone provider can charge.

T-Mobile is one of the last providers to make recent changes to their ETF policy following the lead of AT&T and Verizon who have made similar changes to their ETF policies. Sprint/Nextel is the only major cell phone provider in the U.S. that has not recently made changes to their ETF policy.